


The Youngling

by SpellCleaver



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, Luke's POV of what went down, POV Luke Skywalker, Spoilers, The Mandalorian (TV) Season 2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCleaver/pseuds/SpellCleaver
Summary: This is something written after the Mandalorian S2 finale, so please don't read if you don't want to be spoiled for that.In which the Jedi gets to meet the Child.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Luke Skywalker, Grogu | Baby Yoda & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 44
Kudos: 220





	The Youngling

**Author's Note:**

> Is this highly predictable from me? Is it literally just a write from Luke's POV of what happened? MAYBE, BUT LUKE SKYWALKER IS BACK AND I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT NOTHING ELSE FOR SIX HOURS I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THAT EPISODE HOLY SHIT.
> 
> Massive shoutouts to the people on Discord who watched it with me when it first dropped and then to all the people who screamed about it with me for hours, all your thoughts were _so good_ , and especially to [Cory](https://coralnoodle.tumblr.com/) for his excellent insights and ideas, a lot of stuff in this I stole from him.

He's in the middle of a call to Leia when he senses it. The Force chimes—like a commlink, he thinks, amused at how scandalised Yoda would be by that comparison—and he frowns, turning away from his sister to reach out.

_"Luke, you need to focus, this is—"_ Leia cuts herself off. She senses it too. Even young Ben, babbling about something just beyond the holotransmitter, is silenced for a moment by the Force.

_"What is that…?"_

Luke reaches out.

An old presence. A… young, presence. Bright, powerful, and full of potential, made brighter and shimmering in its location—wherever it is, it's a powerful place, and this powerful child is using it.

_Where are the Jedi?_

_Are there others like me?_

_I was alone for so long, and he promised I would no longer be alone…_

Then it's cut off—naturally, but abruptly—and foreboding sweeps in.

"Sorry, Leia," Luke says. "I'll come visit you all on Coruscant some other time. For now there's a youngling who needs help."

* * *

_"Incoming craft, identify yourself."_

He can sense the youngling on the cruiser, he's reaching out to them—and they, he, is reaching back. Fear clouds him, the protectors and presences around him stark in the Force with it; whatever is happening, the child is in danger.

Luke doesn't bother answering the hail; just switches the comms off, and lands. Artoo whistles from the back seat.

Luke laughs. "Yeah, me too, buddy. Let's see what trouble we can get into today."

He hops out of his X-wing and climbs down. Things are moving outside; it… leaves prickles up the backs of his arms and his spine, a fear too visceral to be the Force, born of human instinct instead. Thud, thud, thud echoes through the corridors.

He steps outside, Artoo close on his heels.

When his father died, he left him everything. Luke has visited Mustafar, Vjun, a thousand planets and bases with the codes and intel to access them all. It doesn't take a moment to summon them to memory and hack into one of the consoles in the corridor, viewing—

Oh.

_What are those?_

Dark troopers, the monitor says, but they don't seem to be troopers at all. They're droids.

Droids with armour tougher than a blaster shot, enough force in their limbs to shatter transparisteel, enough strength to fight a gundark—

But not, he thinks grimly, enough to tackle a lightsaber.

Not enough to tackle a Jedi.

"Shut them down," he says, hands flying over the console, "shut—"

_ACCESS DENIED._

He lets out a breath. "Artoo, can you—"

Artoo plugs in, and a frustrated squeal sees the end of _that_.

He tries again.

_REQUEST CLEARANCE FROM MOFF GIDEON._

"Father has clearance to control them but not shut them down entirely?" Luke snorts. "I suppose it makes sense Gideon would want to lock out as much as he could." Artoo beeps. "You're right."

His fingers type out one last command—the foreboding and the threat is mounting in the Force, choking him.

"Come to me, not the youngling."

And he almost senses the moment all the dark troopers turn away from their task… to face his direction.

Luke unhooks his lightsaber from his belt and smiles to Artoo. "See if you can keep up." Artoo's indignance makes him laugh.

He brings up his hood and strides forwards, his cape flaring behind him.

* * *

They come at him quickly: two corridors, one turn, and then one's on his right, shooting—he raises the saber and bats it away with ease. The Force pings and he lets that movement glide into the next, carving up the one coming from the left.

He's familiar with the layout of a Star Destroyer by now but a cruiser's slightly different; he hesitates for half a moment before striding out onto a walkway over a docking bay. Troopers swarm from straight ahead but he deflects with ease, slashing through them. One grabs his shoulder; he swings; it lets go.

He keeps moving.

Into another room, full of crates stacked high and wide and shelves. Full of dark troopers; he shoves one against the wall, slashes through another, and it's almost rote before he gets through.

They're dangerous. But so, he supposes wryly, spinning his lightsaber to get a better grip—though Leia would accuse him of flair—is he.

Through the corridors—four more. He can feel the youngling's presence reaching for him, watching him; he smiles under his hood and reaches back, like the first time he met Ben and he took his nephew's proffered hand. _I am coming. You are safe._ Something coos.

Into the turbolift and up. Artoo has fallen behind—he'll get an earful about that later—but Luke can't let himself get distracted. There are still troopers…

The doors open on them: two rows, several deep. They're facing him, away from the youngling—heh. Good.

He swings his saber before they can even fire, the Force bunching around him. One droid flies forwards into his slash, the other flies back before it can hit him; he spins and dodges, the cape swirling around him, barely blinking, drives his blade down through the head into the chest, beheading another—

If the Imperial Remnant designed their dark troopers so the main control was in the head, where any humanoid would think to strike, they were asking for this.

One left. He extends his hand and watches it crumple and spark. For a moment, staring at the chest controls head on, he's reminded of a cyborg, not a droid, and the shape of the head morphs in his gaze into a mask more familiar—

Then he clenches his fist. It drops, destroyed.

And now the corridor is empty, and only the dented blast doors remain.

He takes a deep breath, lowering his saber at his side and stepping forwards. He closes his eyes. He can sense the youngling— _Grogu_ , he hears—beyond, as well as tense, wary, afraid adults.

They have done so much to protect this child from the Empire.

He can only respect that immensely.

There's shouting, arguing—and then one of the adults opens the blast door and lets him in.

He doesn't realise how smoky it's become until he can breathe more easily, stepping onto the bridge. Glancing up from under the rim of his hood, he clocks six presences. Four women, on the other side of the command table from him, all with blasters pointed his way: two Mandalorians, one hired mercenary and a stocky soldier with a Rebel starbird tattooed on her cheekbone. He turns his gaze to the left, where Grogu and his… protector… stand; also a Mandalorian, he's looking at him with a complex mix of emotions Luke is too distracted and polite to unpick.

He deactivates his lightsaber and lowers his hood.

It doesn't seem like any of them recognise him—which is not a novelty, considering how much time he's spent travelling in the far Outer Rim recently, but it remains welcome even if he's not sure how it'll help the situation. He's here for Grogu; will they give him up to a strange Jedi? Mandalorians have always hated Jedi.

He doesn't know.

He'll find out.

Grogu is sitting in a chair at one of the consoles—he leans out to peek a look, and Luke gives him a faint smile. He's… not what he expected.

He looks like Yoda.

Luke _really_ hadn't been expecting that.

He can't help but smile.

The protector draws his attention back with— "Are you a Jedi?"

He's heard a lot of iterations of that question. This man's wariness is not the first he's encountered.

He tries to quash his smile back into something approaching stoicism when he answers, "I am."

Grogu looks nervous. Luke can't blame him.

Still, he reaches out a hand. "Come, little one."

The term of affection sneaks out before he can stop it—Ben called him that, his father called him an iteration of that… Grogu seems to respond to it, though, and Luke senses it sounds familiar. It reminds him of a temple once destroyed, a home he lost, and masters who trained him.

Luke decides that Grogu's age and backstory can wait for another time to unpick. He's not sure how old he is—Yoda lived to nine hundred—but it looks like he's younger than Ben.

But Grogu doesn't respond to his hand. He looks to his protector.

His father figure, Luke realises, and tries not to feel emotional at that.

The man says, slightly defensively and slightly awkwardly, "He doesn't wanna go with you."

No. That isn't it. "He wants your permission."

He remembers a boy who didn't want to follow a Jedi Knight to Alderaan because he couldn't leave his uncle.

He remembers a boy who desperately wanted his father's approval, even when he learnt his father was everything he wanted to destroy.

Grogu's protector looks hesitant, and though Luke sympathises…

It is dangerous to let such a powerful Force-sensitive go untrained. Especially with the Empire after him.

He needs him to understand that.

"He is strong in the Force," he says, almost apologetically. "But talent without training is nothing."

Even if that training involved Grogu's elder whacking Luke on the shins repeatedly. Again, he suppresses a smile.

"I will give my life to protect the child," he promises, "but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities."

That convinces him.

He lifts Grogu up, so gently it's painful, and stares at him as he carries him over.

"Hey, go on," he murmurs. "That's who you belong with. He's one of your kind."

Grogu reaches up as if to touch his cheek—or rather, the helmet.

"I'll see you again. I promise."

Grogu's hand drops from the helmet.

And after a moment's hesitation, his protector reaches up to remove it.

Luke blinks fiercely, overcome by a fiercely familiar emotion—he looks away, not looking at his face or his tears, the way men on the second Death Star did for him and his father.

"Alright, pal," he hears. "It's time to go."

Luke swallows.

"Don't be afraid."

Then he leans down to put Grogu on the ground and Luke looks back, meeting his gaze firmly and kindly. He's tearing up, but Luke doesn't acknowledge it.

It's almost a surprise when Artoo rolls up behind him and beeps.

Grogu waddles towards him, cooing. Artoo whistles back. Luke lets himself smile, this time.

At Grogu's lifted arms, he picks him up, as gentle as he was with Ben. He can feel his protector's eyes on them.

After a moment of… connection, Luke looks up.

"May the Force be with you," he says, and inclines his head.

Grogu's protector just looks devastated.

Luke wants to say something to comfort him—wants to say that he knows how this feels. But he knows it wouldn't help.

So he just cradles Grogu in his arms, as gently as he can, and walks away.

* * *

"Come on, little one," he coos as they strap themselves into his X-wing. Grogu is perched on his lap, and it's a struggle keeping his hands away from the controls. "You seem to have had a lot of adventures.

"Are you ready for one more?"

Artoo whistles something, Grogu coos, and hyperspace blurs the stars around them.


End file.
